Ralph Jaccodine

"I’ve run a record label and a personal management company for over 20 years, so when I’m with my students I very much feel like I’m talking to peers as opposed to a student-teacher relationship because—and this is the most exciting thing about being a teacher­—I am getting so much from the students. It’s a two-way street. It’s very much a good conversation, and I try to challenge them like I challenge my business partners."

"Six days a week, I am in the trenches of the music business. I’m managing a whole bunch of artists, putting out a whole bunch of releases, and I’m dealing with the music industry all the time. And then one day of the week I go to Berklee and I talk about it. So, yes, we have books and, yes, we have materials and we have a syllabus. But I’m also talking about what I deal with on a daily basis. I think that’s what’s fascinating for me—I can talk about my fundraising campaign, I can talk about getting a publicist, I can talk about the problems of bringing in the money, I can talk about my plans for marketing my artists, and it’s not like I’m not doing it. I’m doing it."

"(If students come to Berklee) they’re going to school and networking with the next generation of the music business. So there’s a lot of value to looking around the classroom and figuring out the people that you can do partnerships with, you can manage, or you can get a job with or hire, or something like that. It’s a great petri dish of talent, and (students are) going graduate, get out in the music world, the entrepreneurial world, the entertainment world, or the management world, and they’re going to do great things."

Other professional distinctions: Former concert director of the University of Notre Dame; started Black Wolf Records with Mike Dreese of Newbury Comics in 1992; president of Ralph Jaccodine Management, artist management company since 1992; on board of directors for Club Passim, in Cambridge, since 2004; on board of directors of the Folk Alliance International since 2013.